


Colonizing Home

by thisnewjoe



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Cliffhangers, Kidnapping, M/M, POV Alternating, POV Kaidan Alenko, POV Shepard (Mass Effect), Wilderness, Zombies, barely-disguised references to other fandoms, cupid is a horny elk?, got some real bumpkins here, needs more zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 13:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19870660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisnewjoe/pseuds/thisnewjoe
Summary: Former spec-ops man Shepard finds himself saved by a solo mountain man Kaidan, who has been fending off zombies in the Rocky Mountains since he escaped there months ago. The forces that brought them together will pull them apart, and the hope for their partnership and the future of the humans rests on a delicate deceit that balances defense against the zed hordes against human survival.This prompt comes from the image created byAzzyfor the Mass Effect Reverse Bang 2019, which has been a delightful project.





	1. Chapter 1

Kaidan's work in the mountains was usually pretty tame. Checking the trails for dangers, watching for signs of fires or other hazards in the distance, using a lobo on any zeds that came through. Routine, really, for an outdoorsy guy who survived the zombified downfall of global human culture.

It's not how he planned on spending the rest of his days. He's doing his best with the tools and experience he's got, and a fine and distant home in the northern Rocky Mountains. He expected maybe some day to get a job he loved, working outdoors, seeing his friends on trips back to Vancouver, and visiting his parents. Most of that's gone now, held close only in his fading memories.

Kaidan doesn't give up on people. He will get tired, even exasperated, but he never gives up. He's got a brilliant mind and he uses it to work through problems other people might give token attention to until he lays the end result of his thinking out, and then they're whammied by the elegance of his conclusions.

It's what Shepard was going to discover about the man as they got to know each other after a chance encounter that changed expectations for them both.

Of course, neither of them had an inkling of the chaos from which their friendship would be forged, and despite the risks, they took a chance and found something like life and home in each other's company.

When Kaidan heard the Elk raging in the distance, he took note of the area as one to avoid for a while. It was horny elk season and they don't take kindly to anyone intruding on their territory. Immediately after making the mental note he heard a terrified yelp that had a distinctly human tone. He was moving in the direction of danger before he fully registered the thought that someone was in danger. He already had his lobo in hand, adapted from the World War Z design to match Kaidan's martial arts training, and charged as quietly as he could toward the crashing some few thousand feet away.

At the source of the noise, Shepard was operating on the idea that nobody was around to help save him from the situation he just found himself in. His attention had been focused on the herd on the green, chomping at foliage and sniffing calmly about in the air. After a couple minutes of just sitting, he noticed the large male elk at the same time it noticed him. It was maybe twenty human paces away (that's about three elk paces) and had been looking for the source of the stench that was threatening his ladies.

Maybe Shepard could just—"YERGHHHAAAAAA! fuckFuckFUCK!" rushed from his face before the conscious sense of danger crossed his taxed mind. He observed his arms scrambling and felt the slam of each step he made as he ran through the woods, dodging trees and trying to keep something, anything at all, between him and the crown of very pokey danger from coming into direct contact with any part of himself.

Time was distorted for him. And though he would later piece it all together, as suited his advanced special ops training, none of that training came into play right now. What happened now was a snap fight/flight/freeze/play-fake-dead decision made by the cerebellum.

The cerebellum was rather proud of itself at the successful takeover. It had pulled rank on the cerebrum, who was its younger and gargantuan companion, and who definitely thought way too much of itself. The cerebellum regarded the cerebrum as the source of all noise and idiocy that the human race put into the world.

Huddled below the other two was the brain stem. It relayed the facts as they were fed to it, caring neither if the source was the cerebrum or the cerebellum, and keeping things going when the other two parts weren't paying attention. The brain stem worked, and was proud of what it did, and regarded these "decisions" and "thoughts" that came at it from the other two as really much more chatter than was absolutely necessary. It took comfort in regularity, in the resistance of its established patterns. The only exception was the sneeze, whose whole-body nervous flash delighted the brain stem so, and generally the brain stem tried to behave itself and not slip too many of those into the regularizing tasks it did so reliably.

While the noisy cerebrum was virtually offline, and the agoraphobic cerebellum feared exposure to the world outside the skull, and the brain stem kept close watch on the whole of Shepard's automatic systems, Shepard's adrenaline surged and then thinking didn't matter: Running, dodging, escaping from the nightmare chasing it were all his world was left with, and he responded accordingly.

Rocks ahead. There were rocks ahead and the cerebrum managed to slip an idea to the cerebellum that rocks were very good for keeping pointy death crowns away from the body, and they agreed to move Shepard over and around them while looking for a better chance to get away from this huge thing.

This constituted the scene that Kaidan entered and which brought him to a halt as he took it all in.

One harried man was rather skillfully dodging the concerted efforts of Mr. Angry Elk, and the elk itself was only getting more frustrated because the man posed a threat that he couldn't get to, which left his ladies in danger. This threat had to be eliminated forever and for always and the elk was going to be the one to do the job.

Kaidan already knew that there's no good way to enter that situation and expect to end it with two fully unperforated humans, so he improvised a distraction.

He grabbed for his belt, swung a bolas he'd made the week before, and smacked the tree beyond the elk. It did not seem to notice, which was certainly not the desired reaction. He grabbed the second bolas he'd made and swing it around, more patiently aiming at the elk, and managed to get the elk in the antlers.

This seemed like a failure at first, but when the elk changed its angle to make a whack at the spot where Shepard was, it must have clobbered itself in the eye with the one loose end of the three-part tool. A bolas could be very long, with three rocks at the end of a cord each, knotted together and tossed in such a way that they would wrap around the legs of an escaping animal. Kaidan made his shorter which suited the forested areas better. His were good for knocking-out smaller animals for food and other material resources, and could serve in a pinch to get a zombie's attention for drawing it into one of several traps Kaidan had setup in his mountain territory for exactly that purpose.

When the second one hit the target, it had looped two of the three ends around the antlers. The third loose end was enough to whack the creature in the face when it moved around, which caught its attention as the much nearer threat and gave Shepard a chance to run away. Kaidan followed in parallel, pointing in a direction that would provide them the quickest escape from this area and give some protection in case the elk pursued them further.

After a full minute of running they ran up a narrow path and got on a rise above the trees. The elk couldn't be seen anymore, but they could hear angry noises in the distance that suggested Kaidan's weaponry had been good for making a quick escape.

"I, my good man, am Shepard, and I am so glad you happened to be nearby when that thing went crazy on me." Half of it came out in tired wheezes. Shepard had been running, leaping, climbing, and dodging at a rate that would have impressed even his officers at boot camp, and he could barely stay standing. So he gave in and flopped to his back, closing his eyes to the early evening play of sunlight on the clouds.

Kaidan chuckled and panted, saying nothing for a moment as they both started catching enough air to get settled back to normal.

"I'm just glad you're not a zombie swarm out to give nature a hard time."

"No, I am definitely not that."

"I'm Kaidan. Canadian by birth and at heart, even though I'm down on your side of the border these days."

"You guys do good syrup, and I hear you've got killer skiing."

"That was probably true, but I never enjoyed skiing like I did farming, or working in the national parks. I even did a public access cooking show for a while, but that's a luxury we don't have anymore." Kaidan seemed to stop himself and realize that he'd said more than he intended to. He's had nobody to talk to in a long while, and he was usually quiet and misunderstood by most people.

"Oh, man, I haven't had good food since this whole thing went sideways." Kaidan glanced at Shepard when the other man spoke, and did a quick assessment. Shepard's breathing was almost normal, and when the newcomer had lifted himself from the ground to a seated position, he'd stuck his legs out straight ahead of him stretched himself. If there were injuries, they weren't to any joints or bones.

"Well, I'm not really teaching much anymore. It's just me these days, and so..." Shepard let Kaidan leave it there. He understood what it was like as much as anyone could. It was chaos, and the entirety of every myth of what modern humans were capable of and how well we'd broken away from our past came slamming back into reality when the zeds started coming around. As things settled into the new weird normal, people generally gave each other a lot more room speak or not, and say whatever without expecting or fearing what anyone might say in reply. Even if he hadn't had his specialized training, he figures he'd have realized that people don't through those things and come out without needing lots of time to process, and it could get awkward. Letting people speak their peace and be okay with whatever came out seemed to work well for most people, so he tended to err on the side of saying less than saying more. He liked conversation, and would flow through different subjects whenever the other person needed it.

He looked over to Kaidan. They made eye contact and he gave a nod. It's the kind of nod that says "I hear you" and "You don't have to say anything you don't want to" and even the "We're alright now" that slaps a bit of hope on this apocalypse and that seemed to suit the Canuck well enough.

"The zombies come around sometimes in groups of a few to a handful. Sometimes the wildlife just doesn't realize their instincts don't include fear, and they threaten and the zombies attack, and it can be bad for the critters out here—" he waved a hand out like an experienced tour guide explaining the natural order of things—"So I, uhh, just try to rescue them from potential harm whenever I can. You're the first human I've seen in a while who wasn't part of some warlord's scouting party, or a survivor just barely making it out here."

"I've had some run-ins with the bad ones out there. They're not that far from here, which you probably know already. I really don't like those guys. That's not why I got involved in the military, and it's not what I want to be part of now even though the military is broken and barely working in the few areas that haven't exhausted their resources or lost too many leaders."

"Listen to us, meeting new people and the first thing we do is complain." He looks expectantly at Shepard and asks, "Do you think we're ever going to get over the complaining thing? I mean, not you and me, I have no idea what your plans are. I mean people, those of us who are left. We matter for the future, but I don't know that we're going to get very far if we don't learn from these mistakes."

"The zeds weren't a mistake, but they happened anyway."

"You sound like a man who knows something."

"I don't quite believe the origin story we've been told. I've seen too much."

"You a military man?"

Shepard nodded.

"Which branch?"

"Formally part of the Navy, but I was in a new special operations organization affiliated with the SEAL organization. We were tasked with handling things they weren't allowed to touch."

"Illegal stuff, you mean?"

When he had heard the question from people before it always sounded like they were passing judgment on him, and they'd made their mind up before he even answered. He was going to give the automatic answer when he suddenly noticed that Kaidan was just asking. He was the first person to ask with the genuine interest in knowing. So Shepard took a chance.

"Sometimes, yes. Legal systems are intentionally slow so as to provide consistency over time. Politicians change, and some laws here and there may change, but for the really big stuff sometimes you gotta be ahead of the curve and act before some threat actor leads the world into World War Three."

"Looks like you guys should have been working on prepping for the zombies."

Shepard barked a laugh at that. For all their role-playing gaming his squad team did, and their joking about how they'd deal with a zombie attack, nobody took things seriously. "You know, we joked about it, but I kinda wish we were a little more serious about it now. Nobody saw it coming, and just because some idiots somewhere made a fuck-up, the rest of the planet suffered. Civilization was always brittle, and I thought I knew what that was like, but I didn't really see it until I watched the burning on TV."

"I saw that, too. I didn't do special operations, but I was in the naval service and worked my way up to Major before things blew up. Ended up leaving the service and dedicated most of my time between my parent's farm, teaching kids, and all that good cooking nobody will ever get to taste."

"Oh, let's not give up hope on that yet. We'll find some camp stove and some propane some day and you can cook up some real nice food."

Kaidan stilled at that. Shepard was the first person he'd been around in a long while who was fully alive and not an asshole, so far as he could tell. Shepard seemed fun, and skilled, but Kaidan wasn't about to trust someone just because they're charismatic. It's a good way to get his throat slit while sleeping.

"Sorry if I was presumptive, Kaidan. I don't mean to move in on your territory here. I meant only that I want to pay you back for saving my ass out there. You're good with those things you threw. Got the big guy right in the head the first try and that's the kind of thing a decent person doesn't let go unreciprocated. And we can't make it out here without learning to trust each other again. It's risky, but I really hope it's rewarding, too."

When he heard that last part, Kaidan didn't know that he agreed. He was going to have to think about it for a while. He did want to clear-up the assumption, though.

"To be honest, the first attempt swung so far wide of the elk it clobbered a tree beyond it. I managed to get snared in the antlers almost by accident, but I'm glad it worked. I worried that one little slip might end it all for you, either by hitting your head or a sudden trampling by the elk."

"You're a good guy, Kaidan. I appreciate the honesty. But it's also fine to take the credit and live as a hero just for the day, if you want to." Shepard beamed a wry smile at him. "I wouldn't hold that against you." Kaidan felt his face get hot.

He distrusted himself to say the right thing, so he said nothing and just looked out over the horizon, trying to figure how he was going to deal with the situation.

Back in the murder-by-elk scenario, the different parts of Shepard's brain had worked out shifting command duties effectively, as is possible with extremely advanced tactical training and operational stress coping strategies. In Kaidan's mind, the cerebellum and cerebrum had worked out a general rule that said all humans are risky over time, so keep them at a distance. If the noisy thinky cerebrum managed to forget the threat, the cerebellum would pump some adrenaline in and the rushing sensation would snap Kaidan to self-awareness. He'd stop thinking of the flirting as cute. He'd stop thinking of Shepard as dashingly handsome in a beautiful sort of way. He's almost certainly turn—

"You think loudly. Do you know that?"

It took a few blinks before Kaidan processed what he'd heard, and then he went over it again to make sure he heard it right.

"Yeah, definitely noisy in there." Shepard said, standing and keeping his distance casually apart from Kaidan. He wanted to establish that he was respecting boundaries, while not pretending they're not there. Kaidan would tell Shepard next week that he was probably more lonely than he realized, and that the flirting was probably a very effective way for Shepard to get his missions accomplished even before his military training. The man from special ops would feel the truth of Kaidan's assessment as soon as he heard it. 

In the following hours, they'd both share memories they were keeping for themselves. They would safe of the foods they miss, or the places they'd loved. They'd talk about what they want for themselves, and what they wanted from each other. By the end of the night, after a flood of tears shed by each of them, they would go to sleep huddled together. The tension of the last months will drain a little in the solid comfort of each other's arms, and a little bit of hope and love would setup their nest in each heart. It would also be the first good night's sleep either of them will have gotten since the fall of human civilization.

But that would come after Kaidan had taken the week to process his observations and thoughts on Shepard. None of that was present now, and Kaidan settled on a new, temporary plan for the next few days as he figured out what kind of person Shepard was. He had some food stashed nearby, and lead them to the cache for a needed snack. Shepard's survival instincts were suited well for warfare against humans, and in human environments, but Kaidan's knowledge of natural resources made him the better steward of their care.

"You said that I think loudly. I haven't really heard anyone describe it that way before." He rubbed the back of his hand over his forehead in a nervous gesture. "I just don't like acting on first impulses when I don't have to. I've paid the price for that before, and I'm not willing to do it again."

Shepard heard the seriousness in Kaidan's sharing, and he caught the gentle warning that came with it. Shepard was fine for thinking and acting as he wanted, but the Major was going to take whatever time he needed for as long as he needed and it wasn't negotiable. He found that refreshing, and silently accepted the demand.

People grieve as they will, and sometimes don't even know they're doing it. Kaidan is already seeing how Shepard's amiable fellowship is not just a tactic to get to know people, to assess them, but that it's also because he's as scared as everyone else. He happens to be good at putting a good veneer over the struggle, but it's as real for him as it is for Kaidan, and a little bit of the tension inside loosened.

His cerebellum decided to let that one go. It didn't know what to think of this Shepard, but the cerebrum was satisfied at seeing Shepard negotiate with him, and so far, he's acted faithfully when Kaidan said things, and even to things he left unsaid. That spoke well of the man he was sharing a snack with, so he concentrated on keeping his breathing regular and relaxed.

They both knew Shepard wasn't there for a fight. They also knew that Kaidan was up to the challenge if a fight was called for. The playing field was level, and that assessment comforted each of them.


	2. Chapter 2

Shepard watched from a hiding place in the trees where got a good vantage watching Kaidan lead a trio of zeds into a trap he'd created. It was simple, and elegant. With a minimum of effort Kaidan could lure and disable a group of zeds by having them chase him to a ravine that lead to a cliff face. He'd setup a series of logs on sturdy ropes he'd fashioned out of some local vines he'd prepared. When they spotted the zeds shambling in the next valley over, they setup a plan to lure the group to the ledge and test the trap they'd just finished repairing.

Zeds are slow. Anyone would attest to that. Their danger came in their constant motion. They never slept, they never did anything but pursue. Even humans, some of the most effective social pursuit hunters in Earth's long history, had lost many of their greatest achievements simply because they were overwhelmed by the army of undead who cared for nothing at all, but were always moving, highly infectious, and suffered no fear. In them, the diseased brain functioned on one single slow thrum that pattered the same two things for as long as their nearly-dead brains functioned: eat move eat move eat move eat move eat move. It never stopped being eat move eat move. Humans had cares, concerns, love, fear, hunger, illness, and grief. Without all those things we weren't humans anymore, and these husks that were weak compared to the typical person were still highly effective in their two tasks.

Kaidan's traps had been developed with some trial and error from animal traps. Most of those were rigged to catch something for recovering later, with the most humane of these merely holding the creature painlessly but assuredly until Kaidan checked the trap again. With zombies, Kaidan clarified, it's much worse to trap them, and better to destroy their power to infect. If they're trapped then there's a risk of infection when dealing with them in the trap. Enter the most unlikely of sources on wilderness warfare: cute forest bears from a sci-fi empire.

Both of them had grown-up with the famous space opera, and both mourned the unreality of the friendly forest bears whose cheeky shenanigans shifted the tide against an interstellar death machine. The tree houses would be particularly awesome, and their skills in the wild would surely come in handy with the new zombie menace, as well as providing advantages against the humans who made themselves warlords who frequently fought and cared little for securing a future for humanity that lasted longer than their momentary enjoyment of aggression and indulgence. 

Shepard had read the books, and Kaidan had only seen the movies, and they had lots to talk about as they went on patrols. The more they talked, the more the things that once seemed fantastical and fictional seemed so much more likely these days.

The marine's own special ops training included improvised defenses of all kinds, and over the next weeks he will have helped Kaidan improve his trap designs and effectiveness. They will create enough protections in the mountain valley that they could reasonably dispatch a wandering zed or few without trying to draw them closer to their quarters.

That, too, will change as they developed their working partnership. Kaidan doesn't give Shepard specifics about the range of the territory he monitored until the fourth day, following a rockfall that nearly killed them both, and then a morning patrol attack by a scouting party who had decided to try to raid their camp on their own instead of coming back with reinforcements.

They will drop the bodies onto a pile of zombies at the bottom of the cliff trap, and then they move camp to the next valley over and spend weeks developing new patrol routes and defenses, and learning the habits of wildlife that pass through their area. It will work in their favor that they moved, since the new area includes more accessible iron that Kaidan could turn into tools, and he and Shepard build a kiln in a cave away from their base so that the smoke couldn't give away their location.

Things would turn out well for them for a while, much longer than they expected, really, given the potential for chaos and random encounters even in this remote area.

Today isn't the last time Shepard will watch Kaidan working his magic from a distance. It won't be the last time he'll see Kaidan in danger and have to wait and see how things turn out. It's the last time it's done as a practice exercise, however. Much more will be at risk than the usual dangers that come with luring zeds to their doom in a simple and powerful crushing trap like this one. Idiots, it seems, can have the best of intentions and still nearly kill everyone. Shepard's going to have to figure out how to deal with that.

He watches as Kaidan dispatches each of the undead to their final resting places. When Kaidan's done checking around and gives the signal, Shepard comes out of the distance and congratulates Kaidan on the effort. Intellectually, he trusts Kaidan to know what he's doing and avoid getting in trouble. Emotionally, the situation is much more complex, and he hugs Kaidan closer than he intends to. He holds him for a moment longer, and Kaidan seems to relish in the support.

"I know you were worried, and don't both denying it I can read that from a distance and you confirmed it with your hug. I know you worry, Shepard, but you aren't here to fix anything. This is partnership, and I knew you had my back. I also gotta say that before you came along I did real well against the odd zombie or two with worse traps than we've made here, so I'm pretty good. Not overconfident, just clear on how to do this right."

"I love it when you lecture me on my love for you." 

Which is how Shepard dropped the L-word on Kaidan and totally didn't mean to. Kaidan pulls him in again and with his lips against Shepard's throat he confesses, "I think I loved you at least a little from the moment we met. It's only gotten better since then."

For some days now Shepard had been carefully not saying what he was thinking about on that specific subject matter because he wanted Kaidan to have the time to process things and come to his own conclusions about their future and bring those up. When that plan went up, he worried, and his brain went a little berserk shooting signals through all parts of the brain, causing him to freeze and flash anxiety throughout his body. When Kaidan reciprocated, the parts of Kaidan that kept him way of humans had already carved-out a Shepard-shaped hole inside and stopped worrying to much about what the future held.

The present felt like a gift, and Shepard bore that gift freely.


	3. Chapter 3

Kaidan headed to meet Shepard at their usual patrol spot on this round and found on his approach that there was another person there already, and Shepard was talking with her. He snuck closer to better asses his next move.

He'd gotten close enough and stayed out of sight of the other person and got an eavesdropping update on the local rumor mill and stories. Shepard had already noticed him and given a couple hand signals that they'd previously worked out to quickly communicate with each other if they found themselves in a situation around other people that required communication but they couldn't talk.

And what Shepard told him was to stay hidden. He was chatting this person up, asking them about themselves, sharing stories that were generally mostly true but always with key elements left out or misdirected. He flat out lied a couple of times, and it all seemed smooth. He sent the "sorry" sign to Kaidan when he did that. Kaidan didn't prefer lying, but knew it was necessary at times. Same with killing; it's got to happen or you die in some situations, or killing a zombie now means not dealing with them and their pack coming back later in a larger horde. Or snacking on someone's face while they sleep.

As Shepard continued his conversation, keeping an eye very much not on Kaidan's location but alert for any signs the other man might send his way, he kept chatting up Chris here for info about things. She'd managed to escape some pretty bad people and left with bad memories and a few scars, but seems earnest when she wished she could have rescued more people from the gang leaders. The gang fights were always bloody, and always shrunk the pool of available people for the future of humans than was wise, but warlording is a short-sighted problem because it looks like victory and cannot last beyond the reign of the current leader. Death and leadership changes both tended to result in destroying the accomplishments of one generation at the expense of present and future ones.

While he listened to Chris he tried to anticipate the kinds of questions Kaidan would want him to ask. 

As a special ops agent and eventual crew commander, Shepard had developed a sharp sense of reason and judgment that were both quick and highly accurate. He drew inspiration from multiple sources: the actions, beliefs, subtle behaviors, and other traits of the people or environment he was working in. He had his team share what they thought and how they observed things, and ran exercises together undercover in public to test their ideas. Their accuracy rates were extremely high, and the training became part of the standard curriculum. His squad had achieved unparalleled mission success and survival rates when compared to all the special ops teams.

He has been learning that Kaidan's mind works a little differently from his. Kaidan isn't strategic in the same ways; he's not always working to an outcome. He achieves it, because even for a mind like his there has to be a time to accept the incomplete conclusions and move on. 

Kaidan looks at the world and seems to take everything in. He catches details and ideas and hints and reviews them and matches them up and filters them and works them until he's satisfied he understands everything he wants to know about some situation, and then he acts on the conclusion. He's a planner, a thinker, a person who churns through information like Shepard cranks out delighted smiles. Shepard catches what he needs for missions, but the way Kaidan thinks about characters and plot and storytelling tropes in their favorite stories in the pre-collapse world sometimes leaves Shepard feeling like he's missed half the important stuff in these stories. There's beautiful nuance in Kaidan's way of thinking and Shepard can't emulate it, but he does know the kinds of questions Kaidan asks.

So he plays proxy. He asks Chris a couple questions that get her talking about things Kaidan would want to know. Details, specifics, a story told with a little more info than the teller may think is relevant.

Kaidan gives him a thank you when he does it, and when Chris confirms she's on her way, Shepard waves her off and watches her disappear into the wilderness. As part of their security protocols, Kaidan heads to a secure point a little ways from the meeting spot and Shepard heads there separately. Kaidan watches to make sure the other man isn't being followed, and then they meet and talk.

Such security measures became necessary when they were nearly ambushed by two scout groups and a half-crazed person who'd burned their brain on drugs during the fall and still somehow managed to escape consumption and conversion to zombiehood.

"She knows an awful lot for a wanderer, don't you think?" It was Kaidan's concern, too. He'd been thinking about the conversation and the potential risk she posed, but other than their physical location, she knew nothing real about Shepard and Kaidan. Shepard was good at disguising things, and Kaidan knew that only because he knew the truth about their situation.

Shepard was about to propose that they figure out what to do next when Kaidan interrupts. "Sorry, Shepard, but I think you'll want to hear my thoughts on this." He rubbed his hands up and down his face, then shook his head.

"I think she was like that before the end. She's got strong survival instincts. Sure, if push came to shove she might admit that she met you along the way. But she also avoided mentioning who else the talked to. She even said that she doesn't want to be responsible for bad things happening to people."

"Yeah, she did say that. But why would she say anything at all?

"I don't think she expects to survive this. I think she hopes humans do, but for herself, I think she's been on her own for so long she doesn't see any other way for things to go." He taps Shepard on the torso, pushing a little at his chest. "My guess is that she is trying to find the right people to talk to so they can do something about it. She's got no idea what, but it's a lot like hope."

"How did you figure that out?"

"For starters, she isn't bothered by zombies."

Shepard considered that. She didn't seem bothered by the zeds in the slightest. They were a hassle for someone like her who is constantly roaming. She's been on the road since before the apocalypse started and some of the places she talked about are real far away. It's not like we're going to go there and do anything about those situations, but don't you find it interesting that she thought you were looking for people to be with? You, specifically, she figured out real quick that you prefer being around people and dislike a solo life."

"The solo life worked fine for you for a while, then you had to go save me and fall in love and everything. Sheesh."

"Shut up, Shepard." Kaidan grinned, then kissed him for a moment. "She's not someone I would worry about in all this; she's survived some probably pretty awful stuff. And now, she's doing her own thing and she's doing it well. There are no trains to hop anymore, no rapid path between one area and the next. She's getting in touch with the world as it is on the world's own terms."

"The more you say about her, the more I kinda like her. I kinda wish she'd been up for sticking around for a while."

"Yeah, me, too."

Shepard notices that Kaidan looks to be thinking again. When the other man huffs to himself and smiles a little, Shepard cocks his head to the side and waits for Kaidan to share his thoughts.

"Shepard, did you ever have fantasies about hitching a ride on a train as a stowaway and see the country passing from the open door of a freight car?"

"Can't say that I have, Kaidan. I grew up in the city, and most of my escape fantasies involved finding some dropped wallet with a load of cash in it. That didn't change so much as an adult once I got enough money to take care of all my expenses and start saving up. Then it came down to figuring out how to cause some justice in the world for the people who couldn't take care of it with their own resources. I never thought about not being around people or working with people."

"I hitched a ride from Vancouver to Sask once. It was not well-planned, but I figured it out and made my way back. Took a couple weeks to return because I was hitching rides and checking out local places."

"I get that, but how does that relate to this lady?"

"There were some people who did that kind of thing because it was attractive to them in some way. A fantasy they got to live directly through experience. For others, it gave them access to something unique in the world. Those people tended not to stay around as long as the others, from what I heard on my own journey. There were also people kinda like oracles. Somehow when you talk with them, these travelers on the road, you get exactly what you need at exactly the right time, even though you never expected to meet that person."

"Did you meet an oracle?"

"I met two. One was at a rail stop in a mountain town during a short layover. He told a fantastical story about this restaurant in Calgary that serves a pretty great pie for cheap. I'd been thinking about pie for days, and since I had no rush to get home, I hopped trains and figured out my way to Calgary and I strolled into that shop and had what was easily the best pie I've ever had. Talked to the chef and worked in the place long enough to learn the recipe and duplicate it to the chef's own standards, and then went on my way. He sent me off with a pie, of course, because that's just what happens out there."

"I had no idea."

"Neither did I, and I can see why people would stay there a long time, accepting the rough and risks of rail hopping and hoboing around. Used to be real popular in the 1800s and through the Great Depression." That Kaidan knew this was no surprise, but his delight in the adventure does surprise him a bit. It's like a weird mix of country and industry life, and Kaidan seemed to prefer the open wilderness above all else, except his family farm.

"I thought you might be less into that, given your relative silence about your time living in Vancouver city proper."

"Oh, well, that I'll explain some evening at camp fire. It's not relevant right now. What is important is that the second time I met an oracle I was riding the intercity bus from Vancouver to Kamloops up in middle BC and a guy arrives at one stop, tells me an amazing story he heard about some stuff about interpreting weather signs that I didn't quite believe, but I listened anyway. When I got back to the farm I saw signs of a real bad hailstorm coming in, the kind that can cause a lot of damage if you're not prepared, and I just went with my gut and started putting the vehicles in the garage and bringing the big animals into the barn for protection. Just as I went to close the doors the hail started. I haven't even noticed that a huge stormfront had formed and moved in. Some fluke of air and water thermals in the waterway between Vancouver city and Vancouver Island. My family never complained again about trusting my gut, and I've given my gut a lot more credit since then."

"If I didn't know better, I'd almost call these oracles some kind of guardian angels."

"Eh, I think they're just people, but the human mind is a pretty amazing engine. We worry about spiders and the flu, but delight in adventure movies where death is present constantly. All I know is that each of us individually is pretty unlikely in the whole scheme of the universe, and there's some things that we experience, or which are shared with us, which feel true in a way that we just know is right. We don't know why, but it's just what's so. Maybe there's some psychological reason these oracles are the way they are. I haven't ever figured that out."

"I'm no oracle. And I'm sure that bothered you for a long time."

"You are right about both those things!" Kaidan's chuckle put a broad smile on Shepard's face. It always does. "It took me a long time to make peace with there being no absolute certainties in anything, even if we have a bunch of evidence for it. There seems to be always some exception to the rule that comes up later that we need to then further examine."

"I don't think I would have done too well in science."

"I loved science. There's a lot of science in what both of us used to do, actually. Psychology, sociology, math, chemistry, all that good stuff."

Shepard took Kaidan's hands in his own and saccharine sweetly purrs in a Southern Belle voice, "You and I are all the chemistry I need, big guy."

"And people tell me I'm the weird one."


	4. Chapter 4

Kaidan wiped his mouth. He wasn't sure if Shepard knew where he was, yet he trusted that Shepard would work it out soon enough. They've definitely missed rendezvous, and he figured Shepard was following them. Kaidan spat when they took an unexpected turn in an area that was more rocky. He figured it would make tracking harder, and when they changed, he left the only clue he could think of to help Shepard know.

"We'll stick around for a while to figure out where your hideout is. You don't have to tell us." The voice was behind Kaidan, wisely staying far enough back to not get hit if Kaidan turned, but close enough that he jabbed Kaidan with the spear every so often just because he could. Kaidan fantasized that if Shepard were here, he'd know how to grab the weapon, turn it on his captors, and disable each of them in turn without breaking much of a sweat. Kaidan had skills of a very different sort, so he decided he had to wait things out. Shepard would show, and if he didn't, and if Kaidan survived long enough, he'd make it out and back to their camp. Hopefully Shepard would be there, welcoming him home.

The smack across the shoulders brought him out of his reverie.

"I didn't say anything. Asshole."

"You were thinking it."

Kaidan just rolled his eyes. He hoped this guy wasn't the leader, just one of the guards. It would be extremely tedious trying to get anything through that man's thick skull.

"Don't look down on us, pretty boy. We're working just as hard out here to keep the human race going as we can." This was the voice behind the Spearman. She looked like she was having a rough recovery from having no more drugs to do on account of everyone else being dead or trying to eat her. He'd named her racetrack after watching her scratch lines up the inside of her arm, a habit he's sure she developed after shooting up several times, leaving thin lines running up her legs. But Racetrack had a hard time not talking.

"You sure did have a nice old life living up in your little pretty mansion wherever you came from, didn't you? Got all them fancy shindigs and fancy cars and fancy foods that you don't have anymore. Doesn't look like you're starving, though. I think he's right. You've got some sort of fort up here in the hills, doncha? Are mom and dad worried back home?"

Kaidan had set himself to accept that they were going to be insulting as hell, and had prepared himself for brutal physical attacks, which became an expectation for chaotic emotional attacks during their journey. Kaidan had plenty of training dealing with this sort of thing, and despite his missing parents, it stung. "I was a farmer and a teacher. I didn't know anything about fancy places and events. We didn't do that."

The man several paces ahead of Kaidan stopped and turned and glared at Kaidan. If he was assessing Kaidan as a potential asset, or looking at him to see how much stew they could make with his body, he couldn't tell. "You bein a farmer and a teacher could be useful. Don't hurt him, Doug and Debbie. Maybe just shut up for a while." He turned his head and Kaidan managed to hear him grunting about their noisy bedtime habits that keep the whole camp up.

Kaidan changed his approach to the situation. He was intending to be very resistant to everything, but he could take advantage of the opening for an influential place in this group, something that might give him a tiny bit of autonomy that he could wedge into something bigger.

Not to be outdone by their own stupidity and impatience, Racetrack hollered at Kaidan. "So what did you teach, Professor?"

For fuck's sake. Kaidan looked at the guy ahead of him, the one who'd asked the other two to keep shut, and watched him hang his head a little in annoyance, but also turn his hear a bit to catch Kaidan's response.

"I taught kids, mostly. Tutoring."

"Oh, well, we ain't got no schoolbooks here yet. I'm hoping we get some before Doug's baby comes due in the spring."

The man in front of him who had flatly failed at keeping the other two silent stopped for a moment. Kaidan brought himself to a slow stop, neither wanting to spook anyone, nor wanting to get stabbed in the back by the oaf behind him."

"You're fucking pregnant?" The man practically yelled it to the hills, into the wilderness. Kaidan glanced over at the sound of echo bouncing back across the valley. If Shepard was tracking them, he'd be making his way through that section of forest. "Of all the dumb shit you have to deal with out here, you thought getting knocked-up was the best way to respond?"

"Hey! We gotta repopulate the planet, man!" Kaidan renamed the guy Stalker, on account of his being much older than the addict and just creepy. Spearman was just not creepy enough a name, and Kaidan shook his head. These two reproducing will not be what's best for humanity. But the ship to a safer, saner future is long gone now.

"And I'm gonna be just like Eve!" she screeched. The only way Shepard would have missed that noise was if he were three ridges farther to the horizon and fully dead. Buried under rocks and fallen trees. Kaidan smiled. When the man who seemed to be the hunting party leader spoke, he glanced at Kaidan and widened his eyes a bit, in a "WTF is wrong with them" sort of way.

The people leading the line just walked slower. Kaidan guessed by their postures that this was a common event with these two behind him, or even with all three of them. They didn't seem as ready to engage as good ol WTF guy was.

"Just keep moving. What the hell is wrong with you two." It wasn't a question, it was a head-rolling statement of fact. "Always saying the dumbest shit" WTF guy lectured the sky. "Don't got a good two brain cells to rub together between the two of you—" he stomped forward again shooing the rest of them to get moving again. "and now we gotta figure out how to make it through winter without you dumb shits fucking up every damn thing you get near." The rock he kicked skipped a good 20 yards or so into the mostly smooth patch of dirt to the right. "First you let that guy go last season who was maybe our only chance at surviving a zombie onslaught..."

Kaidan lost track of the next several words. Shepard arrived a season ago. It would be impossible to know which direction Shepard was coming from when Kaidan rescued him. They didn't talk about it, but Kaidan is finding himself surprised at the annoyance in his head about not knowing these people were so near.

He turned his attention back to the man ahead of him, whose expressive rants captured the essence of what it is to be truly WTF even in this situation. He caught, "at least two days back to camp now that we've got this injured guy. What the shit did I do to deserve this? What?" He saw the man's arm's raise in exasperation.

As soon as Kaidan realized he'd be going for a walk with these guys, he affected a limp so he could try to keep them from moving from the area too fast. He wanted to give every chance he could to slowing them down. The limp was good, and he improved it when he pretended to overcorrect when the idiot behind him whacked him too hard at first, and he intentionally rammed his leg against some hard ground. Enough to bruise, but he knew it wasn't enough to cause serious injury, let alone an injury that would keep him from ignoring the pain enough during worthy escape attempt.


	5. Chapter 5

Shepard's route along the crest included spot-checking several traps in the area. Some of them were for catching animals for food and other resources, and the rest were for zombies and the occasional ill-intention human. The first and last of these kind were meant to catch and hold, not maim or seriously injure, but the zombie traps were intended to be as fast as possible. Were the targets human or animal, were the targets even able to feel sensations like pain, they would have been considered brutal.

When there is a mindless enemy that needs no sleep coming after us and the people we care about, we tend to do whatever it takes to crush or dismember the enemy at as far a distance is possible. All close-quarters skirmishes with zeds were extremely highly risky. General suspicion had it that the zombie virus or whatever it was tended to be pass along by body fluids, especially in bites and in getting z-muck in a wound. Truth was, nobody found out for certain before the quantity of zeds overwhelmed the national media. Shepard and Kaidan assumed it did the same for everyone else.

Kaidan had taught him a lot about the various kinds of traps, and Shepard had used his specialized military experience improve traps, and to find a few locations for new ones. When they discussed the ethical implications of what they were doing, Kaidan tended to appreciate the history of the being they were up against, and he felt sad after every attack. Shepard felt accomplished, like a little something was going right in the world whenever he was part of a victory against zeds.

And when he and Kaidan started hunting larger game to get food and other resources in preparation for the colder months, they honed their awareness and trust in each other in a way that reminded them both of their squad days. Kaidan's service was mostly outdoor youth organizations and then leading those organizations when he got too old to be a kid anymore. He took small groups of kids, not more than three most of the time, on weekend survival adventures in the Canadian back woods. There he trained them on recognizing wildlife paths in the underbrush, how to read the droppings of the predator and prey animals to understand what was happening in the habitat, and how to know when to run, should it come to that.

As Shepard descended the third crest on his way to their meeting spot he glanced at the trail. Kaidan told him that though there weren't many visitors to this section of the park, the rangers working here used to keep the trails maintained pretty well. Now that it was just the two of them taking care of this region, they made sure to vary their routes. They didn't want anyone passing through to think it was still being maintained or occupied, since just Kaidan alone was at risk, and the two of them together might be able to fight off one or two people with ill intentions, but safety wasn't guaranteed out here even with fortified walls.

Shepard appreciated Kaidan's foresight. While he could have taken to nesting in one of the several fire watch towers dotting the hills to the horizon he chose a secretive nook that was hard to stumble into and easy to defend from any one or more zeds that came their way. Zeds were persistent, but not smart, and they'd rigged the entrance to cause any pursuing zeds to dump off the cliff instead of getting into their living space. To protect against the unlikely wanderings of a human out so far into the wilds, they'd made the entrance look like a natural growth.

It did lead to some close calls with mountain lions, whose fierce climbing strengths and limber bodies required some special preparation to defend against. Within the first week of Shepard making the area his home, which was almost a week after Kaidan had first encountered him, Shepard had defended them against one who they'd spotted hunting them on the way back from their rounds. They did injure the cat, but she escaped and hopefully will return to being as wary of humans as she probably used to be.

He misses the motorcycle, though. It was something trivial from the past that he was keeping to himself as a sort of private memento of how things used to be but he found himself sharing the story with Kaidan one evening when they'd stayed up feeling conversational, and Kaidan came back with a motorcycle license plate from out where he'd found an abandoned patrol car and a crashed set of bikes. It looked more like a post-social disorder event where nobody won, since there were no large hordes of zombies outside the cities. Not yet, at least.

So Shepard dreams about the motorcycle, about riding with Kaidan on the pillion, holding his muscular arms around Shepard's torso. He hasn't made a move on Kaidan, not too directly, but he does get a little flirty. He's enjoying watching Kaidan sort it out, knowing that when Kaidan's ready to ask, or to offer or decline, that he'll do so. As of this morning's start of rounds, Kaidan said nothing either way, so Shepard kept a light mix of flirting in the background.

It was nice being with Kaidan. The other man has probably finished his rounds already, with Shepard taking the longer route and fixing one of the traps that had been damaged by the falling of a branch in an overnight windstorm.

As Shepard approached their meeting spot he started sneaking. They'd made it part of their daily training to sneak up on each other this way, both keeping themselves in attentive form and ready to rapidly react should something get too near. It was good for the reflexes, but a bit much on the nerves, the way Kaidan complained about it some of the time. Shepard was better than Kaidan, but there's a competitive streak in the handsome Canadian that drove him to get good, fast. now, maybe once every few days, Kaidan gets the jump on him.

Shepard snuck a wide circle around the area, looking for signs that Kaidan was hiding, waiting for Shepard to get near. When several minutes passed and Kaidan hadn't arrived, Shepard made sure he recalled the meeting spot correctly. This was certainly the right place. There were footprints around, and Shepard matched his own, Kaidan's, and at least a few others. Different shoe sizes, patterns, some boots, some sneakers.

"Fucking hell, Kaidan. Where are you?" Shepard soundlessly muttered to himself. He followed the trail, keeping careful to monitor for any signs of humans nearby. Kaidan may have gone to help them, or he may have been captured. That many people aren't going to move fast, they're going to plot along. It should give Shepard time to catch-up. Given that they would probably have been gone less than an hour ago, they can't be too far. Shepard checked his surroundings and then raced as fast as he could along the trail, following footsteps and the broken branches, and even one blob of spittle left by one of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Despite illness and various life things that came up, this submission is complete! (With cliffhanger at no extra charge!)
> 
> It's tempting to do more with this story. They're not done yet, not by a long shot, but there's hope in the hills despite the zombie apocalypse, people being dumb and aggressive, and writers being very swamped.


End file.
